Fraunhofer Center for Assistive Information and Communication Solutions – AICOS29.11.2016
The current emerging Internet of Things (IoT) presents several challenges concerning time and costs associated with the development and production processes. Having this in mind, IoTiP (Internet of Things in Package), a new project promoted by NANIUM S.A. together with Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS, addresses these problems by presenting a development ecosystem that combines extremely integrated and modular hardware, firmware and software components. These will contribute to the creation of new IoT solutions that aim to address otherwise unreachable markets.
The integration of sensor technology, processing power and radio connectivity in the objects that support our daily life is now a reality. Despite the increasing number of smart devices, the time and costs associated to hardware development have a negative impact in the sustainability and dissemination of it. The IoTiP project is a solution to these problems.
The IoTiP, proposed by NANIUM and FhP-AICOS, embeds sensing, processing, energy management and radio communications in a System-in-Package (SiP). This SiP, based on the emerging Wafer-Level Fan-Out (WLFO) technology, sets a new standard in miniaturization. It will provide a physical interface to enable a modular architecture that allows adding new features to cover a huge variety of applications. Moreover, IoTiP’s ecosystem will provide a hardware abstraction layer that will allow developers to seamlessly interact with the SiP and its features. This will contribute to simplify and speed-up the development of new IoT solutions.
For Manuel Monteiro and Hugo Gamboa, Fraunhofer Portugal AICOS’ researchers, “the current development platforms are still far too complex and require expertise in several fields, such as electronics, firmware and software development. Moreover, these platforms are not suitable for developing end products, as reengineering resources are needed to make them ready for the production phase. By creating a development platform based on a modular SiP architecture, conceived for mass production, IoTiP aims to facilitate the development of new IoT solutions”.
“Combining Fraunhofer’s and NANIUM’s expertise allows disruptive solutions to be offered in the IoT market. The IoTiP project offers an ultra-small, energy efficient, easy to integrate and ready for production platform. It will materialize our common vision of an interconnected world.” said Rui Pedro Silva, NANIUM’s IoTiP project leader.
Not only is the project goal to offer a development platform that stimulates the creation of new IoT solutions ready for production, but also to enable former traditional industries, such as footwear or textile industries, to embed technology in their solutions yielding a differentiated product. NANIUM and FhP-AICOS are, with this, committed to contribute to IoT growth on a global scale.
IoTiP is a two year project, co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under COMPETE 2020.